2 horses break from carriage at Festival of Lights in Riverside

Two carriage horses fell after they ran into a water-filled barricade Sunday night, Dec. 1, at the Festival of Lights in downtown Riverside after a bolt that secured them to the conveyance broke, the owner of the carriage company said.

The carriage stayed in place after the horses took off, and no one was injured.

The barricades the horses ran into were on Orange Street. The carriage operator’s veterinarian checked the horses and said “they do not have any serious injuries beyond the ‘road rash’ from the fall,” city spokesman Phil Pitchford said Monday morning, Dec. 2, in an email.

The hitch bolt that broke was the same type used to secure a trailer to a truck that is towing it, said Garrett Winne, the owner of Pony Land, the San Diego-based concessionaire for carriage rides at the festival.

He said by phone that all 18 of the carriages used in the festival were being inspected Monday after the incident.

The carriages were cleared for use Monday, Pitchford said, but an unrelated issue prevented them from offering rides — cars had parked in the carriage loading and unloading area and could not be cleared out in time to use them.

He said the area will be coned off for future nights, and the rides were expected to return Tuesday.

“It must have been a faulty bolt. I have never seen anything like this,” said Winne of the suspected cause for the horses getting unhitched from the carriage and running. Winne  added that he has been in the carriage business “my whole life.”

“It was a horrible, horrible thing,” he said. “I can assure you that everything that could have been done to prevent this had been done … This was just a freak thing. I have been shook up about it — how could this happen?”

A photo on social media shows the animals on the pavement, along with water from the barricades. The west side parking lot of the Riverside Main Library is in the background.

“Just watched 2 horses running full speed down Orange St. on the east side of the Mission Inn,” Rich Montgomery said in a Facebook post along with the picture. “… this was a horrible experience for my kids to witness,” he wrote.

“If they had not crashed into the barriers, someone could have been killed. My kids don’t want to come down here for the Festival of Lights anymore,” Montgomery wrote. He called the downtown carriages “inhumane” and said, “The City needs to shut this down.”

Winne said the two mares, Greta and Tink, were going to be checked by a veterinarian again Monday. The two horses had worked in last year’s Festival of Lights as well, he said.

He said Greta and Tink broke into a run when the bolt broke and some of their harness tackle fell behind them. Also, he said, they went from the energy of pulling a carriage to having nothing to tow.

Cynthia Fury, who owns Cindy’s Cinderella Carriages of Riverside, said the horses should not have run.

“If they were seasoned horses that had done that event, they would not have run off … the driver would have given a command, and the horses would have listened.”

Fury, who said she drove carriages at the festival for a total of 15 years until the contract went to Pony Land, said she planned to speak about the incident at Tuesday’s scheduled City Council meeting.

Fury said she last drove a carriage at the festival in 2017. Local drivers have had a standing objection over awarding the carriage contract to the San Diego company.

The carriage involved in the incident is designed to carry as many as eight people, including the driver and a helper. Winne said he was not certain but believed there might have been four passengers aboard when the horses ran.

“The carriage operator worked with security and festival-goers to get the horses back on their feet and back to the lot where they set up each day,” Pitchford said in the email that went to Riverside Mayor Rusty Bailey, current City Council members, and members-elect.

He also said carriages used at the festival are inspected daily before horses are hitched to them.

“Staff was out at the scene late last night and again early this morning, and it (is) continuing to follow up with the carriage operator to ensure all safety measures are being followed,” Pitchford said.

Riverside Police were not involved in handling the incident, spokesman Officer Ryan Railsback said.

The Festival of Lights opened Friday with fireworks at the  Mission Inn Hotel & Spa and continues through Jan. 6.